An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations

If these cogitations of the eternal God be not carnal: yea if they be not wicked, and devilish, let the godly indifferent reader judge,

If these cogitations of the e•ernall God be not carnall: yea if they be not wicked, ād deuelish, let the godly indifferent reader iudge,

In this your long gradation,¹ which ye make upon the words of Paul, ye conclude contradiction to the holy Ghost, and to the plain words of the Apostle. For the Apostle meaneth and plainly speaketh: that albeit God doth long suffer and delay the judgement of the reprobate yet cease they not to be vessels of wrath, as they that are ordained to perdition. But you conclude the contrary affirming, that he hath not ordained them to fall. And so because you conclude directly against the holy Ghost, I can not cease to say, that your collection is erroneous. But to give an answer more full and large, in examining the parts of your gradation, I will show your error and the cause thereof. first you say: seeing God suffered ⟨p. 177⟩them with great patience, he is sorry for them. here I say in your first foundation lieth your error, and the cause thereof is, that altogether ye are ignorant of gods nature, in whom nether falleth such sufferance,² such patience, nor such sorrow, as you grossly imagine. God is omnipotent, and is compelled to suffer nothing, which he hath not appointed in his eternal counsel, he is a Spirit, and free from all such passions, as creatures be subject unto. for in his eternal Godhead, there is nether patience subject to pain, nether yet sorrow annexed with anguish and grief. But when such passions be attributed unto God, it is for the weakness of our understanding, that the holy Ghost doth subject him self in language, and tongue to our capacity.